A difficult area of life for people who walk away from addiction can be interpersonal relationships. Often people find their discomfort around people drives them into substance use. When people are sober they need to learn how to deal with humans without crutches of substances. This can be difficult in the beginning and lead to stress eventually. Negative family and friends in recovery are often the biggest hurdle to people staying clean early on.
Negative People
Negative people is subjective as it depends on the individual circumstances. There are a number of characteristics a person can share that are negative, including:
- Distrust of people, places, and things
- Losing friends easily
- Tend to blame others for bad things that happen
- Blow things out of proportion
- Become passively or openly aggressive
- Overly critical of others
- Feel better about things that have happened
- Completely self centered
Addiction and Negativity
People who fall into drug abuse tend to adopt negative mental attitudes. Part of the reason is that the person feels they have things to feel bad about as addiction spirals out of control. They justify their behavior and point out bad things in other people but cannot keep making excuses. People need to give up pessimism to be successful in recovery.
How to Cope
The good news is there are strategies for coping with negative people in recovery. They need to keep their time with negative people to a minimum. This helps them stay away from negative influences. It is important not to feed into the negative observations. Negative people will be there but it helps to stay positive in spite of all the negative energy. Learn to talk to people about small things and not dive into areas they can comment negatively about. The best strategy is not to listen to what everyone says and lose sight of how you are going to fight your own battle on your terms in recovery.
Oceanfront will help you kick addiction to the curb with our premier beachfront community in Laguna Beach. We are founded on the principle of providing the best in care and services at affordable prices. We are located in beautiful Laguna Beach. Call us to find out how we can help you navigate addiction recovery: 877-279-1777
